Posted on 05/31/2024 10:51:02 PM PDT by Right Wing Vegan
A former college professor has been sentenced to five years and three months in prison over a string of arson fires in Northern California in 2021 as fire crews were battling the second-largest fire in the state’s history.
Gary Stephen Maynard, 49, of San Jose, pleaded guilty in February to three arson counts in connection to fires in the Shasta National Forest and near the Dixie Fire in the Lassen National Forest.
The Dixie Fire burned over 1,500 square miles after igniting on July 13 and destroyed over 1,000 homes. Maynard was accused of setting fires behind firefighters battling the Dixie Fire.
According to the Justice Department, Maynard admitted to starting the Cascade Fire on July 20, 2021, and the Everett Fire the following day. He also admitted to sparking the Ranch Fire and Conard Fire on Aug. 7 that year.
Investigators arrested Maynard after putting a tracking device under his car. The Associated Press reported he was a former lecturer on criminal justice issues at Santa Clara University and Sonoma State University for a period.
Maynard faced the possibility of up to 20 years in prison and a $750,000 fine. Besides the prison sentence of more than five years, he was ordered to pay $13,081 in restitution.
13k in restitution and a 750k fine? Those numbers need to be swapped.
wait...it wasn’t climate change causing the fires ? (s/off)
Why not be charged for all of the damages? 1,000 homes alone is more than $13,000. While I recognize that he likely has zero ability to repay, the actual cost should be passed along. And five years? How about life with no possibility of parole?
It should be one billion in restitution and one billion in fines.
He should have been given life without parole plus hard labor.
Maybe give him an out: Lock him in a concrete bunker with a gallon of gasoline and a match.
Tried to find what his motive was. Perhaps he’s a sociopath and we will never know. Found this interesting..
“ He taught two seminars on the topics of criminal justice and deviant behavior, according to school officials. ”
https://wildfiretoday.com/tag/gary-maynard/
That’s a terrible headline. It says the professor received very swift justice: he was found, arrested, tried, and sentenced while the fire still burned. Or that the fire burned for a really long time, years even. Took me a couple tries to figure it out, but it’s past 2 a.m. and I’m tired.
Exactly. He destroyed the lives and memories of 1000 families. Life in prison without parole is the most appropriate penalty. The death penalty is too easy for him.
Less time than if he protested a stolen election.
Arsonists should be committed for life unless it’s proven (somehow) that they are cured of the mental illness of setting fires. They are as dangerous as any serial killer. Not really put in jail jail, that won’t help, but in mental institutions designed to help this type illness... Oh, and they should keep all the matches away from them too.
Oh, ya’ know, like they used to do.
He certainly had a lot of gas money and multiple gifts of cars to conduct his operations with.
||The odds of college professor starting a forest fire are about 100,000 times greater than climate change starting a forest fire.
Employed college professors just talk climate change. Unemployed college professors do climate change.
Imagine the propaganda jackpot for climate change if this guy succeeded in getting firefighters entrapped and killed by the flames, and arson had never been discovered.
He has an interesting mug shot: https://calcoastnews.com/images/2021/11/Gary-Stephen-Maynard—201x201.jpg
He should be tried and executed. Burned at the stake. People DIED and homes DESTROYED.
“Imagine the propaganda jackpot for climate change if this guy succeeded in getting firefighters entrapped and killed by the flames, and arson had never been discovered.”
That may have been his reason for doing it: to blame global warming. If that was his reason, I’m not surprised that his motive was not revealed.
5 years and 3 months? The man should be facing the old electric chair.
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